


The Stocking

by KaiBlueOtaku



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 09:38:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5492492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaiBlueOtaku/pseuds/KaiBlueOtaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unexpected Christmas gift changes Adam's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stocking

                Adam groaned and rolled his eyes.  “Do we really have to do this?” he pleaded.  His boyfriend Evan shoved him in the shoulder.

                “Don’t be a jerk!  It’s Christmas morning!  Aren’t you at least a LITTLE bit excited?”

                Adam glanced at the foot tall, scrawny, dollar store tree, mummified in a full-length strand of frantically blinking LED lights, then to the meticulously wrapped package in his hands.  “Evan, I know what this is,” he stated.  Adam pressed the package to his forehead, closed his eyes, and wiggled his fingers.  “WooOOOoo, the new Bleach manga collection.”

                Evan was making a sour face at him when he opened his eyes again.  “I know you know what it is…  It’s just…” Evan turned his gift over in his hands, chewing on his lip, staring intently down at it.  “It’s our first Christmas together, you know?  I wanted it to be special.”  His voice cracked a little, and Adam instantly felt awful.  He half-crawled half-scooted across the floor, and put an arm around Evan.

                “I’m sorry.  It IS special, but because of you, ok?  Let’s just open our presents, and have breakfast together.”  Adam gave his forlorn lover a peck on the cheek, and Evan brightened a little.

                “Ok.”

WWWWW

                After breakfast, Evan dressed for work, complaining a little about having to go in on Christmas day, but he knew that people still got sick on Christmas, or blew up their turkey fryers and got burned, or broke arms trying to use their new skateboards, so there was really no holiday for a hospital nurse.

                Adam kissed Evan goodbye in the doorway of their apartment, and watched him head down the hall toward the stairs.  As he was closing the door, he noticed a Christmas stocking, propped against the wall next to the door frame.  “Hey, what’s this?” he called, lifting it up and peering inside.

                Evan paused and glanced back.  “I dunno…  Maybe from one of the neighbors?  Weird.  I’ll see you later tonight,” he called with a wave, and trotted down the stairs out of sight.

                Adam closed the door behind him, and brought the stocking inside.  It seemed to be full of Polaroid photos.  Like, a LOT of them.  He pulled a few out, and examined them as he sat on the couch.  They seemed to be really random, like pictures of people and buildings and scenery and whatnot, all with dates and times written in black Sharpie on the white strip.  In one of them, he recognized a statue on Main Street, and there was a red purse laying in the gutter.  The writing said, “12/25/15-12:34.”

                “Weird,” he muttered to himself as he shuffled through a few more.  Another was a photo of a lottery ticket, dated “12/26/15-7pm.”  He snorted.  “Now wouldn’t that be a laugh, if these were the winning numbers?” he said with a chuckle.  An orange and white cat came over and sat on the couch next to him, and he rubbed its head.  “What do you think, Addy?” he asked the cat.  “Should I go buy a ticket for tomorrow’s game?”

                The cat purred contentedly under his touch, giving no other apparent advice.

WWWWW

                Adam hated being alone on the holidays; too many bad memories associated with this time of year, on top of Seasonal Affective Disorder, on top of regular depression, on top of being Ramen and PBJ poor in the middle of winter…  It was kind of an ice cream sundae of gross and unpleasant feelings, and with nobody around but their cats, he was forced to choke it down all by himself.  He often felt very useless, being a freelance writer, and never really having a reliable income.  There seldom seemed to be any purpose to his life, and every day was just repetition and monotony.  It was easy to fall into despair.

                He decided to take a walk, to get his mind off things.  Adam knew that, if nothing else, the exercise and unseasonable sunshine would probably do him some good.  He decided, just for kicks, to go play those lottery numbers.  He wasn’t the type to gamble, but for a buck, it would be a heck of a story, if he won anything.  He tucked the Polaroid into his pocket and ventured out into the late morning air.

                There was a convenience store just a few blocks over that he thought might be open today, so he strolled along, enjoying the festive decorations in yards and visible through windows.  Many trash cans were overflowing with sacks of mutilated wrapping paper, discarded now that their contents had been removed.

                Adam arrived at the convenience store and, sure enough, they were open.  The middle aged woman behind the counter was wearing a stocking cap with elf ears and a fake sprig of holly, and she smiled jovially at him.  “Merry Christmas!”

                Adam couldn’t help but smile back at her.  “Merry Christmas to you too,” he reciprocated, and went over to the lottery stand.  He filled out the slip with the same numbers as on the Polaroid, and took it over to the register, fishing a dollar out of his pocket.

                “Feeling lucky?” the woman (whose name tag proclaimed her to be “Sally”) asked as she rang up his ticket.

                He shrugged.  “Maybe.  Maybe a little Christmas magic,” he said with a wry chuckle.

                “Good luck!” she  wished him.  “I know I could sure use a windfall like that this time of year…  I’m fifty bucks behind on my cell phone bill, and they’re going to shut it off on the first.  But, having a roof over my head, and heat and food and all that stuff kinda takes priority.”

                Adam gave her a sympathetic smile.  “I feel you there.  Working poor.  It sucks.  Peanut butter ramen,” he said, and her eyes opened wide.

                “Oh my gosh, YEESSSSS!” she replied, giggling.  “With sriracha!”

                Adam grinned and held out his fist, which she bumped with her own.  He beat his chest a couple times, and said, “Solidarity,” then pointed at her.  “You have a nice day, Sally.  Good luck with the phone bill.”

                She smiled and waved.  “Good luck to you too, and Merry Christmas again!” she called as the door swung closed behind him with a jingle.

                Adam tucked the ticket into his jacket pocket, and headed back toward his apartment.  The sky was unusually blue, and the naked tree branches stretched toward it, as if trying to better absorb the warm sunshine.

                Something caught Adam’s eye, a flash of bright color, and he turned his head.  There, in the gutter, lay a bright red, leather purse.  He got a creepy feeling, like someone was watching him, but when he glanced around, Main Street was empty.

                Main Street.

                He dug his cell phone out of his pocket, and checked the time.

                A chill ran through him, as he saw the numbers, 12:34.

                “No way,” he whispered, and moved toward the purse as if in a trance.  He picked it up and sat down on a nearby bench, still looking around, feeling sure that he was being watched, that this had to be some kind of a prank.  He reached into the purse and pulled out a bank envelope.  It was very thick.  His mouth went dry, and he stuffed it back into the purse, rooting around for a wallet.  It matched the red leather of the purse, and he opened the flap on it, displaying the driver’s license of an old woman.  Marjorie Weatherby, the name read, and there was an address across town.  Adam noticed a checkbook as well.  _How quaint,_ he thought to himself with a chuckle, and then realized that there was a phone number on it.  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed it.

                It rang several times, them went to a voicemail with a generic message.  He waited for the tone, and then spoke hesitantly.  “Um…  Is this Marjorie?  I think I found your purse.  If you could give me a…”

                There was a click, and a breathless, elderly woman gasped.  “You found it?”

                Adam got a shiver.  “Yes ma’am, it was against the curb here on main street, near the post office,” he replied, glancing around to give her the nearest landmark.

                “Oh my goodness…  Can you meet me at the police station in ten minutes?  I don’t mean to be rude, but, and old woman like me, and the sort of people in the world these days, you can hardly trust a soul.”

                “It’s no problem, ma’am.  I’ll see you there soon,” Adam assured her, and hung up the phone.  The police station was close to his apartment, and was easily within a ten minute walk.  He sat on the front step, and directly a burgundy Buick pulled up.  The little old woman behind the wheel could barely see over it, and Adam wondered if perhaps she looked between the wheel and the dash board to drive.

                She rolled down her window, and Adam came over to her, handing the purse through the crack in the window.  She reached into it and pulled out the bank envelope, opening it and carefully counting all the bills inside.  When she had finished, she clutched it to her chest and fell back against her seat, giving a sigh of relief.  She looked up at Adam with tears in her eyes.  “This is my whole pension check,” she told him with a quiver in her voice.  “I thought it was gone for sure.  I didn’t know how I was going to pay my mortgage, or the power bill or anything.”  She gave a ragged sob as the tears began to roll down her cheeks.  “Thank you, young man,” she whispered.  “There are still honest folk in the world.”

                Adam felt himself choking up a little.  “You’re welcome.  It’s nothing, really.”

                She reached into the envelope.  “No, you should be rewarded.”  She passed a twenty dollar bill through the window to him.  “It’s not much, but I live on a fixed income you know.  But I do want you to have it.  I insist.  A lesser man would have taken me for everything I had.  Thank you so much.  This is a Christmas miracle.”

                Adam thanked her kindly, and pocketed the money, waving goodbye as she pulled out and drove off.  A warm glow permeated him as he went home, and waited for Evan to get home from work so that he could tell him all about the awesome events of the day.  Of course, he left out the part about the stocking and the Polaroids…  That was just a little too weird.  But they celebrated with a cheap bottle of wine, and fell asleep together on the couch in the glow of the tree.

WWWWW

                The next day, Evan had to go to work again.  “I get off at six thirty, I was going to swing by the store to grab a few things, do you want me to check that ticket of yours?”

                Adam got it from his coat pocket and handed it over.  “What would you do if we won big?”

                Evan wrapped him up in a hug, and looked dramatically thoughtful.  “Hmmm…  Probably quit my job, and we’d move to Aruba,” he joked, and Adam snickered and gave him a kiss and a playful swat on the backside as he headed out the door.

                Adam sat down at his computer and tried to write an article about a band to sell to an online blog, but he felt restless and unfocused most of the day, and ended up spending more time playing with Addy and Marcus, their cats, than getting any productive writing done.

                Later in the evening, Adam’s phone started ringing.  He answered it.  It was Evan, and he was very excited.  “Adam, you won, like, three hundred dollars!”  Adam glanced over at his backpack, where he had put the stocking full of photos.  “I’m coming home with Chinese take out!” Evan exclaimed.  Adam agreed, and they hung up.

                Adam went over to the backpack, and slowly picked it up, almost like it was a snake that was going to bite him.  He took it over to the couch and unzipped it, retrieving the stocking full of photos, and dumping them onto the coffee table.

                All the dates were in the future, except for the ones with the lotto ticket, and the purse.  He found a small box, and began to sort them into chronological order.  Once they were all sorted, he looked at the next photo, which was also dated for that day.  It was a picture of Sally, from the convenience store, talking on her cell phone.

                Adam called Evan back.  “Can you meet me at the convenience store?...”

WWWWW

                There wasn’t a photo for every day.  Some days had more than one.  Not all of them came with a cash reward, but after a while, it didn’t matter so much to Adam.  It was something that gave him a sense of purpose, to be able to help others.  Life began to improve for him.  His depression lifted quite a bit, and he often felt more inspired to write, which brought in a more steady income.

                As Christmas rolled around again, he found himself slipping into a familiar sadness and anxiety, but for a completely new reason; the box of photos had slowly been dwindling, and he wondered what he would do once it was exhausted.

                On Christmas morning, he opened the box, and found one last photo in the bottom.  It was just of a Christmas present, wrapped in green paper, with penguins on it.  He shrugged and laid the photo back in the box, going out to the kitchen to meet Evan for breakfast.

                They weren’t struggling so much this year, so there were a few more gifts under their tree, including ones for the cats, which Evan had insisted on.  Adam smiled at the cozy little scene, and found Evan frying bacon at the stove.  He gave Adam a kiss, and pointed toward the table with the greasy tongs.  “I got you a little something extra…  It’s not much, but I saw them, and it just made me think of you.”

                On the table was a package, wrapped in green paper, covered in penguins.  Adam sat down and opened it nervously.

                Inside were three of those decorative signs that hang on the wall.

                The first said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

                The second said, “Commit random acts of kindness, and senseless acts of beauty.”

                The third one was a quote, by Ghandi.  It said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”


End file.
